On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 19:01:05 -0600, "Gene Storey"
wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

Why come down Thud Ridge every day? It points at Hanoi, it doesn't have
much population and it provides radar screening from SAM sites. But,
that means you go the same way every day....Yep.

Plinking. Total waste of time. Didn't achieve anything, and akin to Germans
bombing London. Big deal.


Well, it was my time to waste and pretty damned exciting.

If you check some tonnages delivered by the tactical forces during
Rolling Thunder (that's without the truly incredible numbers added by
the B-52s in Linebacker II), you'll find that we stack up quite
comparably to the major Allied bombing campaigns of WW II.
Exponentially greater than the "plinking" of the V-1, V-2 and light
bombers of the WW II Luftwaffe.

In just two days, the 29th and 30th of June, 1966, for example we
destroyed 85% of the POL storage and handling facilities in the
country. During most of the period we kept nearly 300,000 workers
occupied along the NE and NW railroads repairing the bridges and
rights of way. In LB II, during eleven days we confirmed kills on 43
SAM sites. There are other examples, but it seems that you have a
pretty firmly established position on the matter.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8